Countdown to Auburn vs. Baylor - No. 86 Courtney Taylor

We are 86 days away from the Auburn Tigers kicking off the 2025 football season in Waco, Texas, against the Baylor Bears. The game will kick off on Friday, August 29, at 7:00 p.m. CT.

The days are long, the nights are getting sticky, and the mosquitoes are abundant. Yep, it’s the football offseason in the south. And as we continue the trudge through the sweltering summer on our way to the sweltering fall, AuburnOnSI is counting down to kickoff by the jersey numbers of former Tigers. Coming in at number 86 is former wide receiver Courtney Taylor.

Taylor came to Auburn in the 2003 recruiting class out of Carrollton, Ala. Taylor was an early contributor as a freshman, recording 34 receptions and 379 yards, but it would be in the 2004 season that he would engrave his name in the annals of Auburn football lore for eternity.

The results of the 2004 season are well documented, the Tigers cruised to a 13-0 record on their way to a Southeastern Conference Championship and a Nokia Sugar Bowl victory. But going into the year, expectations were not high, as the Tigers were preseason ranked in the low teens.

They were coming off a disappointing 2003, in which they had entered the season ranked in the top ten but managed a meager 8-5 record, which resulted in head coach Tommy Tuberville having to survive a failed coaching coup from Bobby Petrino. So, though Auburn returned an uber-talented roster, nobody knew what the season would hold. 

Then comes September 18, 2004. The No. 14 Auburn Tigers hosted the No. 5 LSU Tigers in Jordan-Hare Stadium. LSU would open the scoring with an 80-yard drive on their opening possession of the game, but after that, both offenses would stagnate.

When it mattered, that’s when Taylor and quarterback Jason Campbell went to work. With just over three minutes left in the game, and the Tigers down 9-3, Auburn faced a 4th-and-12 at the LSU 28-yard line. Campbell snapped the ball, rolled to his right, and as a host of LSU defenders collapsed around him, delivered a strike to Taylor two yards past the first-down marker.

Taylor wasn’t done. With 1:20 left on the clock, 3rd-and-12 from the LSU 16, Campbell dropped back and hit Taylor wide open in the back of the endzone. It was Taylor’s first career score, and it would ultimately be the score that won the game. The Tigers would take the lead on kicker John Vaughn’s extra point and hold on to win the game 10-9.